The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Missed Opportunity in North Korea

In response to a query, here is my take on North Korea’s
seemingly outlandish behavior (I might also direct interested readers’
attention to my article Big Bang Theory
in North Korea in the March 2013 edition of CounterPunch Magazine—subscribe
at www.counterpunch.org--which covers the issue in more detail):

1.China’s
influence on North Korea’s nuclear policy is minimal.The DPRK knows that the PRC values North
Korea both as a buffer and as a profitable hinterland for cheap labor and raw
materials that it is completely unwilling to cede to South Korea.Therefore, the PRC will not push the DPRK to
the wall about its nukes.

2.It is understood both by the United States and the
DPRK that, absent a regime implosion countenanced by the PRC, North Korea will
never discard its nuclear weapons arsenal, given the negative examples of Iraq
(no nukes) and, under the Obama administration, Libya (denuclearized completely
in accordance with US demands but subjected to US backed regime change anyway).

3.However, beyond the genuine security risks of a nuclear North Korea and the theoretical US commitment to nuclear non-proliferation (the somewhat shaky basis for President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize) there are immediate and compelling geostrategic reasons why the United States finds it virtually
impossible to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons power. With a nuclear DPRK,
there are increasing calls within South Korea and Japan to establish
independent nuclear deterrents and, with them, independent security policies
that would undermine the US claims to serve as the indispensable, arms-race-averting
superpower in the Western Pacific…and call into question the strategic validity
of the “pivot to Asia” which is so dear to the heart of the Obama
administration.Therefore, whenever
North Korea churns out another nuclear provocation, the US is compelled to respond
with a lot of high profile, aggrieved bellowing and posturing.

4.The DPRK is desperate to break out of its
isolation and its exploitation as a Chinese satrapy and reach out to the United
States, much as Burma did.The United
States is quite aware of this, as Wikileaks revealed.Even as the US bloviates about North Korea’s
nukes, it conducts continual back-channel a.k.a. Track II diplomacy through the
DPRK’s UN mission and hosts high-level DPRK missions.However, the North Korean bugbear is too
useful a justification for the “Asia pivot” to be abandoned; I also expect that
Japan and South Korea—which have hitched their wagon to the contain-Pyongyang
star—hold a de facto veto over any US rapprochement.

5.With the United States keen to buttress Japan
and South Korea as key elements of its contain-China constellation—and China
itself the focus of US strategic concern--the only way for the DPRK to
establish its regional relevance is through nuclear brinksmanship—threats that
it doesn’t intend to follow through on.

6.As to what the DPRK hopes to accomplish by
yanking Uncle Sam’s chain in the nuclear way, I think there are a few rational
calculations at work.First, North Korea
is happy to demonstrate to the United States that China cannot moderate its
behavior; therefore, if the Obama administration wants to deal with the North
Korean problem, it has to deal with Pyongyang directly.Second, the DPRK probably welcomes the
nuclear stirrings in South Korea and Japan elicited by its nuclear posturing,
since the crisis creates a certain amount of urgency for the Obama administration
to reach out to Pyongyang and avoid getting sidelined as only one—and the most
distant one—of six nuclear weapons powers (China, Russia, the US, and the DPRK
currently; Japan and South Korea potentially) in East Asia.Third, the DPRK—whose technical capabilities
in the areas of missile and nuclear technology, though often sneered at, are
not to be completely dismissed—can exploit the tensions to justify a race to a)
increase its stockpile of weapons grade fissile material b) miniaturize and
test its warheads to make them missile-ready and c) work on its long range
missiles, before the United States finally decides to bargain with Pyongyang to
put the brakes on its WMD programs.

7.The theoretical way out of this dilemma for the
United States is to offer the PRC some meaningful concession (today, a
meaningful concession probably means downgrading the Japanese relationship and
withdrawing support to Japanese pretensions to the Senkakus and enhanced power
projection in East Asia) in return for Beijing pulling the plug on the DPRK and
participating in some kind of regime transition.That’s not going to happen, given President
Obama’s dislike for the PRC, his infatuation with the “pivot”, and US
unwillingness to betray Japan and South Korea.So the US is making lemons out of lemonade by using the DPRK’s nuclear
brinksmanship to push the pivot narrative of US indispensability in East Asia
with missile defense, B2 flights, military maneuvers, etc. that don’t solve the
North Korea problem but do a pretty good job of exacerbating Chinese hostility.That’s why I feel the US is passing up an
(admittedly remote) opportunity.